Page 46 of The Rust in Her Hair

Mack's brows shoot up.

"Lyra?" A grin breaks across his face. "The Lyra?" He points at Owen. "You finally reeled in the Billionaire bookworm?" He lets out a laugh. "Hell, I owe Adrian twenty bucks⁠—"

"Mack." Adrian's voice cuts flat across the room. "She was attacked."

Mack's grin instantly dies. His mouth pulls down and he grimaces, one hand shoving back through his dark blond hair. "Ah, hell."

He glances down at the pink box still balanced on his palm, almost like he’s trying to figure out what to say next.

"Sorry." He sets the donuts on the loveseat then crosses to Owen, lowering himself into a crouch beside me, forearms braced on his knees. "Okay." The joking's gone out of his voice. "How bad is she?"

Owen's jaw flexes. "I guess she's okay? She wouldn't let me take her to the hospital. I tried. She just kept saying no, kept saying she couldn't—" He stops and pulls a breath. "She's cleaning up now."

"She wouldn't go to the hospital." Mack nods, working it over. His southern drawl thickens the way it always does when he's worried, vowels going long and slow. "She got anything broke? Ribs, bones, anything need settin'?"

Owen opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

Through our bond his feelings swell and turn. The helplessness in him drops away, and what floods up to take its place is worse, a raw, clawing sense that he has already failed her and there is nothing left to do about it. It pours into me until my own throat goes tight with it.

Adrian shifts a half-step closer to Owen. His brow is furrowed and jaw tight. I wonder if he's catching the edge of Owen’s emotions.

"It's okay," Adrian says softly, before looking at Mack. "I don't think she has any broken bones. She's banged up. She’s—" He stops. His throat works, as he drags a hand down his mouth like he can wipe the words off before they come. "There's blood all down the insides of her thighs."

Cold shoots through me, and my hands snap into fists.

I didn't know she was hurt like that. I thought it was bruises and a bad limp, but it's so much worse.

Next to Owen, Mack goes rigid at the exact same second I do.

A sound tears out of him, low, more growl than word, and his hands close hard around nothing. His head turns toward the hallway, toward the sound of the water, and holds there.

I keep my eyes locked on Owen. I make myself do it, because if I so much as glance down that hall I'll be up and pounding on that bathroom door, demanding she tell me who fucking hurt her. And the last thing that terrified girl needs is some strange alpha roaring outside the door while she's trying to wash an assault off her skin.

So I stay on my knees. I stay looking at my beta. And I breathe.

"I hate how useless I feel." Owen sniffs, loud and wet, as he drops his head into his hands. His glasses slip from his fingers and clatter to the floor.

Mack quickly scoops the thin frames up off the boards, careful with them in those big hands, and sets them down on Owen's knee. The alpha doesn't say a word. His jaw keeps working like he's chewing on something he can't get down.

"Nico." Owen lifts his head. His eyes are wet with tears. "She can stay, right?"

"Of course," I say without hesitating, because it's true, and because he needs to hear it out loud. But he needs the truth too. "But Owen." I cup his cheek. "She's an unmated omega. And you know what that means."

His face crumples once again.

"If her family comes looking for her," I go on, keeping it gentle but honest, "I can't stop them from taking her. We've got no claim to her. In the eyes of the law, she belongs to her parents. Not to us."

Owen's throat works. He already knows this, which is probably the reason his hands won't stop shaking.

The quiet gets heavy again.

Then Mack claps his hands once, soft, and pushes to his feet.

"Right. So she takes my room,” he says the words fast, like it's already decided and he'd rather nobody argue. "She'll feel safer in a room that has a lock. I'll blow up the air mattress for Adrian, and I'll take the couch." He looks down at the couch and nods at it, almost fond, like he's sizing up an old friend. "Which, for the record, is the best seat in this house. Sleeping out here'll be like the good old days, back when I was couch surfin' my way across the state."

"You sure?" I ask him. He's giving up his bed for a girl he hasn't met yet, without a second's pause.

The alpha grins. "Trust me, I've slept on a lot worse than this beauty."